A Weekend of Warnings

This past weekend, the United States and Iran traded blows again. The memorandum of understanding both sides signed is already being tested, and Iran's regime is vowing to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz even as talks with Washington are scheduled for this week. In the middle of that, Israel and the Lebanese government struck a deal, brokered by the US, aimed at finally pushing Hezbollah out of Lebanon and cutting off Iranian influence there. And in New York City, voters just elected a democratic socialist as mayor, a man who campaigns as much on his Muslim identity as he does on his economic platform. I watched an interview this week with Pastor Shahram Hadian, founder of Truth in Love Ministry and a former Muslim from Iran. In it Hadian didn't hedge. He said flatly that he sees zero percent chance of any credible long-term agreement with the ayatollahs, because, in his words, this is the pattern we've lived through for 47 years, constant deception, lies, and stalled tactics by this regime. I want to walk through what he said, because it names something I've been tracking for years.

The Ladder They Never Meant to Share

Hadian's most striking framework is what he calls the two houses of Islam. The lower house is the house of war, the phase where Muslims are a minority and the surrounding culture isn't yet under Islamic authority. In that house, he explained, deception is permitted. Tactical alliances, even outward support for causes like LGBTQ rights or feminism, are allowed, because in that phase the goal is influence and growth, not doctrine. The upper house is what he calls the house of the surrendered one. That's where control has been secured, and that's when the alliance ends.

He pointed to Hamtramck, Michigan, as the proof. After Muslim candidates won every seat on that city council, he said, guess one of the first things they did in Hamtramck: they banned Pride events and banned Pride flags. The progressive activists who'd championed those candidates as allies were left asking what happened, we thought we were buddies. Hadian's answer was blunt: what happened is Islam took over. The red transitions to the green. That's exactly what happened in Iran. The infiltration of the red for many decades, he said, and then the same thing plays out. Khomeini rounded up the socialists, the Marxists, and the communists, and had them killed after they'd supported his rise to power. The alliance was never a merger of belief. It was a ladder, and once the top was reached, the ladder got kicked away.

A Younger Khomeini, on American Soil

Hadian connected this straight to what just happened in New York City with the election of Mamdani as mayor. He described the same playbook that overthrew Iran in 1979, and the same players, as the very thing now working to overthrow America. He called the city's newly elected mayor a younger, more good looking version of Khomeini, and said plainly, I feel like this is 1979 again. Whether or not you think the comparison is exact, Hadian was clear that this isn't a slow, fifty year drift. He said it's happening in real time, in alarming ways, and pointed to the election result itself as evidence. He was equally direct about where he's watching it unfold. Not just Dearborn or Minneapolis, he said, but Texas, Florida, and states that might surprise a lot of people, including America's heartland. He referenced footage from this past weekend out of Dearborn, Michigan, of a mass Ashura gathering, and called it a replay of what we've seen in Europe develop over the past few decades, the same power bases now taking root on American soil.

The Historical Root: Iran, 1979

None of this is new to Hadian. He lived it. He noted that many of the clerics who built Iran's regime weren't even Persian, some Arab, Khomeini himself trained in influence from outside Iran, and that the ruling ideology teaches that chaos must be hastened to bring their Islamic Messiah. That same regime's theology, he said, holds that Jerusalem must be under their control for their Shiite eschatology to be fulfilled, which is why no negotiation over Israel will ever be final for them. He connected this directly back to the founding moment: when the Marxists and communists who'd helped bring down the Shah in 1979 had served their purpose, Khomeini had them killed. The tactical marriage happened, and it ended in a purge. That's not commentary. That's the historical record from a man who was there.

What Scripture Says About Unions Built on Shared Hatred

The prophet Amos asked a question that I think applies directly here: Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? Agreement doesn't require identical belief. It only requires a shared destination, even if the travelers plan to part ways once they arrive. That's exactly what the Red-Green Alliance is. Two movements that agree on almost nothing except who they want to tear down. Psalm 2 describes this same dynamic on a cosmic scale. Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed. Nations and movements that share nothing else will still find common cause in opposing God's order. That's not a coincidence. It's a pattern Scripture already told us to expect. And to the church specifically, Paul gave a warning I think applies beyond marriage and business partnerships, into the realm of moral and political alliance as well: Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?. Any alliance built on shared hatred rather than shared truth is unstable by design. It can't hold, because it was never actually one thing to begin with.

What I Think

I don't think both sides are equally in the dark here. I think a lot of well-meaning progressives genuinely believe they've found allies in the fight against injustice, and that's exactly the problem. They're the ones being fooled. The Islamist side isn't confused about what it's doing. Yes, there are Muslims who abhor violence and deception but they are fully onboard with slowly taking power. They’re perfectly onboard with the taking of a city or a country slowly, one council seat and one election at a time, rather than by force. Slow is still strategy. It just doesn't look like strategy until the flags come down. Patterns matter, and history isn't silent on this one. Iran showed the world in 1979 exactly how this story ends for the junior partner in a Red-Green alliance. Hamtramck showed America a small-scale replay of the same thing, and it didn't take a war to do it. And Scripture told us thousands of years before either happened that movements united only by what they oppose won't stay united for long, and that a house divided against itself, or built on lawlessness instead of righteousness, can't stand. Our call isn't to panic or hate our Muslim or progressive neighbors. It is to stop pretending this doesn't touch us. This affects our liberties, all of them, including the freedom to worship openly and raise our families in the faith without apology. We can't afford to look away from what's happening in our own cities. Our call is to watch, to stay informed, to know what the alliances around us are actually built on and vote against those who even brazenly advocate the takeover of America in the name of Allah. As always we need to pray without ceasing, the way Paul instructed the church to live. That foundation is Christ, not coalition politics, and it's the only foundation strong enough to still be standing when every alliance built on hatred has torn itself apart